


Red Line Overload

by piecesofalice



Category: Life
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:57:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofalice/pseuds/piecesofalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kenny Loggins owns even the best of us.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Line Overload

He’s listening to “Footloose” when she gets into the car, and she wonders if she’s stepped back in time.

  
“You were locked up for twelve years, not twenty.”

  
“Kenny Loggins! Misunderstood genius. Understood the delicacy of a repetitive beat and simple lyrics.”

  
“’Everybody cut, everybody cut, cut, footloose?’”

  
“You instantly get what he’s trying to say! It’s beautiful.”

  
Dani held on to the arm rest as they pulled away, and tried not to reach for her gun.

  
\--

  
Roman Novikov stares at them from behind his desk, the delicate symphony of a police search rolling around him like he was the conductor of it all. He’s drinking a chardonnay, the best he could find whilst being so openly underground, and he tips the bottle towards Dani and Charlie like a peace offering.

  
“What a surprise, Detectives Reese and Crews.”

  
There’s silence, except for the sound of books falling onto the floor, as Dani feels her body tense and her partner’s relax, and she kicks herself for not being into meditation or zen or the art of peace and instead clenches her hands into fists and waits.

  
“Not as surprised as we are to see you. But considering we thought this was a cut-and-dry homicide call, we didn’t expect a guilty party waiting for us.”

  
Charlie’s voice is calm.

  
“Not guilty. Your witness. Is this a lovely shade of irony, no?”

  
Dani doesn’t trust herself to speak, even when Roman’s eyes roll over her face, waist and hands, like a dog looking at a bone and she tries not to shiver.

  
His eyes are those of a man who’s seen too much and laughed the whole way home, and for a moment, Dani Reese sees a little too much of herself reflecting back at her.

  
\--

  
“The theme from _Top Gun_. “Danger Zone”! It’s a classic!”

  
“And you’re not the least bit perturbed that Roman is our chief witness?”

  
“We can’t do anything about it. We just have to…”

  
“Go with the flow.”

  
“Go with the flow!”

  
Charlie leaned forward and turned the stereo up. “’High…way…to…the…danger zone,’ bwan bwanny nah…”

  
The sound of her partner rocking out to 1980’s pop doesn’t distract from the fact they’re on their way to protect a known villain.

  
But it helps, and she lets the corners of her mouth roll up, just a little.

  
\--

  
Sitting against the headboard of a cheap looking bed in a cheaper looking hotel, Roman looks at home.

  
“So you’re first warden.”

  
“Shut up.” Dani turns to Charlie, and he grins, waving his cell phone at her like a fifteen year old kid who’s off to buy beer.

  
“I’ll be around the corner, interviewing the hookers.”

  
“Nothing more, understand?”

  
“Nothing less,” and he’s gone, and she’s alone with a Russian sociopath who’s got too many interesting scars for this to be a boring evening.

  
“You are beautiful, you know.”

  
Ignoring him, flipping the TV on and sitting on an uncomfortable chair, she still has him in her eyeline and can see him watching her like a specimen and the idea of him being a scientist makes her brain itchy because it’s almost fitting.

  
He’s up on his feet before she can react, and has his hands around her neck and her back against the wall. He smells like nothing, and Russia, which doesn’t make any sense but it’s heady and she can’t breathe or think and his lips are against her cheeks and his nose in her hair.

  
His mouth is hard on hers and she slips him her tongue, and they mouth fuck while half of her struggles and the rest of her bows like her knees. There’s nothing to say, nothing to do, but she manages to break their lips apart and think of how fucked-up it feels to have Roman’s hands over her breasts and on her thigh.

  
Sanity tries to reign, and she almost gives over.

  
White noise rings, and it sounds like Charlie.

  
\--

  
Kenny Loggins has nothing to say as he drives her back home.

  
“I had a feeling.”

  
She nods, and looks out the window.

  
\--

  
By the time he’s made her tea without milk because she has none, it’s well past their bedtimes and well into the early morning televangelists.

  
“I believe in the healing power of the holy spirit!”

  
“He’s happy.” Charlie sits next to her, and hands her a cup.

  
“So would you be, if you made as much as he did off the Lord.”

  
“Too early for cynicism.”

  
“Too early for God.”

  
He watches her, and she’s not playing up the tough girl routine but watching the television with heavy eyes and her knees around her chin.

  
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  
“No.”

  
Charlie hesitates, but something tells him to continue. “You weren’t pushing him away, Reese.”

  
“No.”

  
The televangelist dances across the screen, hands out of focus waving at the bottom of the shot like a sea of bodiless Things.

  
“You didn’t want to?”

  
“No.”

  
She can’t look at him, so she picks herself up off the couch and pads to her room. The sheets are cold as she slips between them, and she knows he’s at her doorway like the black dog that seems to follow her where ever she goes.

  
This one, though, is red and is her redeeming saviour, so she opens her covers as an invitation and he scurries between them before she can change her mind and banish him to the doghouse.

  
He stays on his side of the bed, but he’s there, and she can’t think of a way to make him understand who why when or how. So she just falls asleep and dreams, of cutting footloose and red dogs with wagging tails.

  
\---

_Fin._

\---


End file.
